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The Ruff
The Ruff & Reddy Show is a Hanna-Barbera animated series that follows the adventures of Ruff (voiced by Don Messick), a smart and steadfast cat, and Reddy (Daws Butler), a good-natured and brave but dumb dog. The show first broadcast was in December 1957 on NBC, it was the first television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions; it was presented by Screen Gems. Their shared "birthday" is July 14th, coincident with the Fête Nationale (Bastille Day) in France. History William Hanna and Joseph Barbera entered the television field fresh from serving as the heads of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation department, which shut down in June 1957. Unlike its successor The Huckleberry Hound Show, Ruff and Reddy featured a live action host, Jimmy Blaine, and various theatrical cartoons from Columbia Pictures' Screen Gems library. Don Messick's "Ruff" voice characterization was very similar to the one that he would later use for Pixie the mouse. Butler used his tried-and-true southern drawl for "Reddy", a voice that would later become mainly identified with Huckleberry Hound. A supporting character in some episodes was the tiny Professor Gizmo (also voiced by Messick). Villains Ruff and Reddy faced included Harry Safari (Butler), Captain Greedy and Salt Water Daffy (Butler and Messick) and western outlaws Killer and Diller (Butler and Messick). The show's episodes borrowed from the serialized storytelling format of such shows as Crusader Rabbit by making extensive use of cliffhanger storylines. Each story had 13 episodes, four airing per show. Don Messick was narrator. The episodes were not much longer than four minutes, including an opening song and much repetition of preceding events. Ruff and Reddy was broadcast in black and white until fall 1959, when it went to color. Actor/singer and storyteller Jimmy Blaine served as the series' first presenter, with puppeteers Rufus Rose and Bobby Nicholson providing comic relief as Rhubarb the Parrot and Jose the Toucan. NBC cancelled the show at the end of the 1959/60 season, and it was later rerun in 1962 with Robert "Captain Bob" Cottle as the second and last live-action host. When NBC cancelled the series, Screen Gems syndicated the cartoons to local TV stations for use on their local children's shows. Warner Bros. Television now owns the distribution rights to the series. Episodes *Night Flight Fright *Planet Pirates *Whama Bamma Gamma Gun *Hocus Pocus Focus *The Mad Monster of Muni Mula *The Mastermind of Muni Mula ("Muni Mula," know, is "aluminum" spelled backwards) *Creepy Creature Feature *Muni Mula Mix-Up *The Creepy Creature *Crowds in the Clouds *Reddy Rocket Rescue *Surprise in the Skies *Last Trip of a Ghost Ship *Pinky the Pint Sized Pachyderm *The Irate Pirate *Dynamite Fright *Marooned in Typhoon Lagoon *Scarey Harry Safari *A Creep in the Deep *Bungle in the Jungle *Jungle Jitters *Hot Shot's Plot *The Gloom of Doom *The Trapped Trap the Trapper *Pot-Shot Puts Hot Shot on Hot Spot *Slight Fright on a Moonlight Night *Westward Ho Ho Ho *Asleep While the Creep Steals Sheep *Copped by a Copter *The Two Terrible Twins from Texas *A Friend to the End *Heels on Wheels *Killer and Diller in a Chiller of a Thriller *Ship-Shape Sheep *The Boss of Double-Cross *The Whirly Bird Catches the Worms *Hot Lead for a Hot-Head *The Goon of Doubloon Lagoon *Tootin' Shootin' *Blunder Down Under *The Late, Late Pieces of Eight *The Metal Monster Mystery *Big Deal with a Small Seal *The Goon of Doubloon Lagoon *Two Dubs in a Sub *A Real Keep Submarine *No Hope for a Dope of a Periscope *Rescue in the Deep Blue *A Whale of a Tail of a Tale of a Whale *Welcome Guest in a Treasure Chest Stations Alphabetized by city. *KCOP-TV / Channel 13• Los Angeles, California *WTMJ-TV / Channel 4• Milwaukee, Wisconsin Other Appearances The characters next appeared on The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie, in the episode Yogi's Ark Lark (which featured almost every Hanna-Barbera animal character that existed at the time). Since then, they haven't been used in anything new. Ruff made an appearance in the Yogi's Treasure Hunt episode "Goodbye Mr. Chump" as a newspaper vendor. Episodes of Ruff and Reddy later appeared on one volume of the Hanna-Barbera Personal Favorites home video series called Animal Follies, along with Yippee, Yappee and Yahooey, Touché Turtle and Dum Dum, Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy and Snagglepuss. The computer game titled Ruff and Reddy in the Space Adventure was released in 1990 for Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amiga and Atari ST. ''The Ruff & Reddy Show'' in other languages * Brazilian Portuguese: Jambo & Ruivão * French Canadian: Pouf & Riqui * Italian: Ruff e Reddy * Macedonian: Жолтко и Лутко (Zoltko i Lutko) * Spanish: Ruff y Reddy * Serbian: Жутко и Љутко (Jutko i Ljutko) * Japanese: つよいぞラフティ External links *The Ruff and Reddy Show at Big Cartoon DataBase *List of episodes @ Wingnut Category:Hanna-Barbera shows Category:NBC shows Category:Cartoons not yet on DVD Category:Ruff and Reddy Category:The Funtastic Index